Memoirs of Lloyd Moss: 1929

The latter part of the month we had battle practice in and around Manila Bay, went into Subic Bay and Olongapo for a short stay in the floating drydock to scrape the bottom. The first two weeks of February were spent in exploring the islands around Coron Bay to gain more topographical information for the War Department. These islands included Busuanga, Coron, Culion, Bulalacao, all practically uninhabited and very wild and uninviting both from the sea and from the beach. It was much as I have described in a similar trip in 1928. After that we steamed up to Shanghai and tied up to the Standard Oil dock for about ten days after which we continued on up to North China to Tengchowfu at which port I didn't go ashore. After a short stay the ship continued on up the Chinwangtao where we stayed only two days and then went back down to Chefoo for a longer visit. This was fine with everyone because although it was cold at this season of the year it was always a happy though small sea-port. It was during this stay in Chefoo that a mystery occurred that has never to my knowledge been cleared up. Our mailman was a seaman, 2nd class, who lived and conducted the mail business in a small, always locked compartment just aft of the wardroom. On a certain morning his business window didn't open at the appointed time. Naturally in no time at all the matter came to the attention of every man on the Trenton. The officers brought the Master-at-Arms to the door and they yelled and pounded on it to no avail. So next, with the permission of the Executive Officer, they broke the door down and inside they found nothing but disorder and about $1.37 in cash. It was calculated that there should have been about $2000 in the safe. Remember that I have described Chefoo as rather a hard place to get out of except by sea, so where could an American seaman go undetected in that isolated spot of the China Coast. For days afterward the ship was alive with wild rumors and speculation about where and how he had gotten away. It was a fact that he was definitely a loner and there seemed to be no one who liked him or knew anything good about him. All I can remember about him was just a face looking out of the mailroom window. If he was ever found the Trenton crew didn't hear about it.

On March 25th we left Chefoo again for Shanghai. The climate is much milder down in Shanghai and the International City was again enjoyed by everyone. I knew that we would be headed back to America soon so I tried to go all over it again. I even slipped over into the ancient, exclusively Chinese part of the city that was there before the Westerners built the modern metropolis of 1929. From this place I have as a memento a piece of knife-shaped money which, according to similar specimens I have seen in a museum, dates from about 350 B.C. So as I rickshawed down Bubbling Well Road and North Szechaun Road, The Bund, and all the rest, I kept thinking, "This is the last time". On the morning of departure instead of taking the rickshaw the four miles down to a spot opposite the mooring, I hired a sampan quite a way upriver and rode down the Whangpoo so that I could be a part of that exotic floating babble of the mysterious Far East for one last time. As I floated along I peeked out from under the plaited bamboo boat cover and tried to have all the sights, sounds and smells so firmly impressed in my mind that I could recall them clearly later on in life when I might be hemmed in on all sides by the mundane shackles of day to day working for a living. I couldn't have realized that my future would not only be separated from that scene by thousands of miles, but that the scene itself as I knew it would disappear from the earth.